MADAGASCAR: Colonial Era, 1894-1960

The following is excerped from the Country Studies--Area Handbook program of the U.S. Department of the Army. The original version of this text is available at the Library of Congress.
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Madagascar

Colonial Era, 1894-1960

The French largely ended the attempts of Malagasy
rulers to
stymie foreign influence by declaring a protectorate over
the
entire island in 1894. A protectorate over northwest
Madagascar,
based on treaties signed with the Sakalava during the
1840s, had
existed since 1882. But Queen Ranavalona III refused to
recognize
the 1894 effort to subordinate her kingdom to French rule.
As a
result, a French expeditionary force occupied Antananarivo
in
September 1895. A wave of antiforeign, anti-Christian
rioting
ensued. In 1896 France declared Madagascar a French colony
and
deported the queen and the prime minister--first to
Reunion, then
to Algeria.

Nationalist sentiment against French colonial rule
eventually
emerged among a small group of Merina intellectuals who
had been
educated by Europeans and exposed to Western intellectual
thought. The group, based in Antananarivo, was led by a
Malagasy
Protestant clergyman, Pastor Ravelojoana, who was
especially
inspired by the Japanese model of modernization. A secret
society
dedicated to affirming Malagasy cultural identity was
formed in
1913, calling itself Iron and Stone Ramification (Vy Vato
Sakelika--VVS). Although the VVS was brutally suppressed,
its
actions eventually led French authorities to provide the
Malagasy
with their first representative voice in government.

Malagasy veterans of military service in France during
World
War I bolstered the embryonic nationalist movement.
Throughout
the 1920s, the nationalists stressed labor reform and
equality of
civil and political status for the Malagasy, stopping
short of
advocating independence. For example, the French League
for
Madagascar under the leadership of Anatole France demanded
French
citizenship for all Malagasy people in recognition of
their
country's wartime contribution of soldiers and resources.
A
number of veterans who remained in France were exposed to
French
political thought, most notably the anticolonial and proindependence platforms of French socialist parties. Jean
Ralaimongo, for example, returned to Madagascar in 1924
and
became embroiled in labor questions that were causing
considerable tension throughout the island.

Among the first concessions to Malagasy equality was
the
formation in 1924 of two economic and financial
delegations. One
was composed of French settlers, the other of twenty-four
Malagasy representatives elected by the Council of
Notables in
each of twenty-four districts. The two sections never met
together, and neither had real decision-making authority.

Only in the aftermath of World War II was France
willing to
accept a form of Malagasy self-rule under French tutelage.
In the
fall of 1945, separate French and Malagasy electoral
colleges
voted to elect representatives from Madagascar to the
Constituent
Assembly of the Fourth Republic in Paris. The two
delegates
chosen by the Malagasy, Joseph Raseta and Joseph
Ravoahangy, both
campaigned to implement the ideal of the
self-determination of
peoples affirmed by the Atlantic Charter of 1941 and by
the
historic Brazzaville Conference of 1944.

Raseta and Ravoahangy, together with Jacques
Rabemananjara, a
writer long resident in Paris, had organized the
Democratic
Movement for Malagasy Restoration (Mouvement Démocratique
de la
Rénovation Malgache--MDRM), the foremost among several
political
parties formed in Madagascar by early 1946. Although
Protestant
Merina were well represented in MDRM's higher echelons,
the
party's 300,000 members were drawn from a broad political
base
reaching across the entire island and crosscutting ethnic
and
social divisions. Several smaller MDRM rivals included the
Party
of the Malagasy Disinherited (Parti des Déshérités
Malgaches),
whose members were mainly côtiers or descendants of
slaves
from the central highlands.

The 1946 constitution of the French Fourth Republic
made
Madagascar a territoire d'outre-mer (overseas
territory)
within the French Union. It accorded full citizenship to
all
Malagasy parallel with that enjoyed by citizens in France.
But
the assimilationist policy inherent in its framework was
incongruent with the MDRM goal of full independence for
Madagascar, so Ravoahangy and Raseta abstained from
voting. The
two delegates also objected to the separate French and
Malagasy
electoral colleges, even though Madagascar was represented
in the
French National Assembly. The constitution divided
Madagascar
administratively into a number of provinces, each of which
was to
have a locally elected provincial assembly. Not long
after, a
National Representative Assembly was constituted at
Antananarivo.
In the first elections for the provincial assemblies, the
MDRM
won all seats or a majority of seats, except in Mahajanga
Province.

Despite these reforms, the political scene in
Madagascar
remained unstable. Economic and social concerns, including
food
shortages, black-market scandals, labor conscription,
renewed
ethnic tensions, and the return of soldiers from France,
strained
an already volatile situation. Many of the veterans felt
they had
been less well treated by France than had veterans from
metropolitan France; others had been politically
radicalized by
their wartime experiences. The blend of fear, respect, and
emulation on which Franco-Malagasy relations had been
based
seemed at an end.

On March 29, 1947, Malagasy nationalists revolted
against the
French. Although the uprising eventually spread over
one-third of
the island, the French were able to restore order after
reinforcements arrived from France. Casualties among the
Malagasy
were estimated in the 60,000 to 80,000 range (later
reports
estimated 11,000 casualties, of whom 180 were
non-Malagasy). The
group of leaders responsible for the uprising, which came
to be
referred to as the Revolt of 1947, never has been
identified
conclusively. Although the MDRM leadership consistently
maintained its innocence, the French outlawed the party.
French
military courts tried the military leaders of the revolt
and
executed twenty of them. Other trials produced, by one
report,
some 5,000 to 6,000 convictions, and penalties ranged from
brief
imprisonment to death.

In 1956 France's socialist government renewed the
French
commitment to greater autonomy in Madagascar and other
colonial
possessions by enacting the loi-cadre (enabling
law). The
loi-cadre provided for universal suffrage and was
the
basis for parliamentary government in each colony. In the
case of
Madagascar, the law established executive councils to
function
alongside provincial and national assemblies, and
dissolved the
separate electoral colleges for the French and Malagasy
groups.
The provision for universal suffrage had significant
implications
in Madagascar because of the basic ethnopolitical split
between
the Merina and the côtiers, reinforced by the
divisions
between Protestants and Roman Catholics. Superior armed
strength
and educational and cultural advantages had given the
Merina a
dominant influence on the political process during much of
the
country's history. The Merina were heavily represented in
the
Malagasy component of the small elite to whom suffrage had
been
restricted in the earlier years of French rule. Now the
côtiers, who outnumbered the Merina, would be a
majority.

The end of the 1950s was marked by growing debate over
the
future of Madagascar's relationship with France. Two major
political parties emerged. The newly created Democratic
Social
Party of Madagascar (Parti Social Démocrate de
Madagascar--PSD)
favored self-rule while maintaining close ties with
France. The
PSD was led by Philibert Tsiranana, a well-educated
Tsimihety
from the northern coastal region who was one of three
Malagasy
deputies elected in 1956 to the National Assembly in
Paris. The
PSD built upon Tsiranana's traditional political
stronghold of
Mahajanga in northwest Madagascar and rapidly extended its
sources of support by absorbing most of the smaller
parties that
had been organized by the côtiers. In sharp
contrast,
those advocating complete independence from France came
together
under the auspices of the Congress Party for the
Independence of
Madagascar (Antokon'ny Kongresy Fanafahana an'i
Madagasikara--
AKFM). Primarily based in Antananarivo and Antsiranana,
party
support centered among the Merina under the leadership of
Richard
Andriamanjato, himself a Merina and a member of the
Protestant
clergy. To the consternation of French policy makers, the
AKFM
platform called for nationalization of foreign-owned
industries,
collectivization of land, the "Malagachization" of society
away
from French values and customs (most notably use of the
French
language), international nonalignment, and exit from the
Franc Zone (see Glossary).